After completing a commercial apprenticeship and working in his father’s business in Frankfurt am Main for several years, Leopold Mayer began studying art in 1923. In 1930, he was admitted to Max Beckmann’s masterclass at the Städelschule academy of art. However, after the Nazis came to power in 1933, Mayer could no longer see a future for himself as an artist and Jew in Germany. He accordingly undertook trips to Belgium, England and Luxembourg, during which he explored possibilities for emigration. In 1935, he emigrated via Luxembourg to France.

After settling in Paris, Leopold Mayer worked as a photographer and succeeded in setting up a print studio and displaying his works at exhibitions. The studio and all the pictures and printing plates were later destroyed by the German occupying forces. In 1939, Mayer was interned in Villerbon. Early in the summer of 1940, he fled to the unoccupied south of France, where he and his wife were able to live and work undisturbed by the authorities until the autumn of 1942. In the autumn of 1942, the artist was again interned before being deported to Auschwitz via Les Milles and Rivesaltes. However, he managed to escape from the train. He captured his experience of internment in numerous artworks.

Mayer was initially able to continue living in France by hiding in the Cévennes. In January 1944, he crossed the Swiss border with the help of CIMADE. In Switzerland, he again built a livelihood as an artist, this time under the name Leo Maillet. He never returned to Germany.

Selected works:
Toter Hund [Dead Dog] (watercolour, 1939)
Razzia [Raid] (watercolour, 1940)
Vor der Deportation [Before the Deportation] (etching [after a drawing dated 1942], 1959)
Das zerbrochene Gesicht [The Broken Face] (drawing, 1945)

Further reading:
Marlene Decker-Janssen: Nachträgliches. Leo Maillet. Ein Künstler im Exil [Retrospective. Leo Maillet. An Artist in Exile]. Bern: Benteli 1986
Leo Maillet: Bilder, Skizzen und Notizen eines Frankfurter Malers [Pictures, Sketches and Notes by a Frankfurt Painter]. Mainz: Edition Erasmus 1994